The Tea Party may be lighting a fire under congressional Republicans to cut the size of government, but voters still expect government spending, taxes and the deficit to go up over the next two years.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 46% of Likely U.S. Voters predict that government spending will increase during the upcoming session of Congress. Only 17% think spending will go down over that two-year period, while 29% say it will stay about the same. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

As for taxes, 49% of voters believe they will go up over the next two years, while just nine percent (9%) think they will go down. Thirty-seven percent (37%) expect them to stay about the same.

But voters express the greatest pessimism about the federal budget deficit. Sixty-four percent (64%) say the federal deficit will go up over the next two years. Twelve percent (12%) say the deficit will go down during that period, and 21% believe it will stay about the same.

The survey of 1,000 Likely Voters was conducted on January 2, 2011 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology.

Rasmussen Reports is a media company specializing in the collection,
publication and distribution of public opinion information.

We conduct public opinion polls on a variety of topics to inform our audience on events
in the news and other topics of interest. To ensure editorial control and independence,
we pay for the polls ourselves and generate revenue through the sale of subscriptions,
sponsorships, and advertising. Nightly polling on politics, business and lifestyle topics
provides the content to update the Rasmussen Reports web site many times each day.
If it's in the news, it's in our polls. Additionally, the data drives a
daily update newsletter and various media outlets
across the country.